Our first game for the season we arrived to find Griffith Park looking more like Narrabeen Lake, you can only imagine the Newcastle faces after making the trip down the freeway. Up for the challenge, the Manly crew commenced work on the ground duties and under the guidance of Jason James managed to have the ground in near perfect condition ensuring the first ball was bowled on time at 10am. An impressive effort to start our campaign.

Our captain, Chloe Osborne lost the coin toss and we were sent in to bat,however it was not the start we were hoping for losing our first wicket in the first over. Kate Salmon (16) then joined Lulu Ryals (7) and together the girls settled in, seeing off the opening bowlers on their way to a solid 26 run partnership. With the fall of the second wicket, so too the start of a Manly batting collapse with the loss of 4 wickets for just 8 runs, finding ourselves at 5/34. With the team in trouble Chloe stepped up and played the perfect captain’s knock. Chloe’s innings was memorable scoring 63 not out off only 50 balls including 4 boundaries. With the slow outfield Chloe was confident and smart enough to adjust her game as her innings progressed and started to play over the top of the infield which proved to be effective given the conditions. Manly needed someone to support Chloe, ensuring we batted out the full 30 overs, in came Eliza Henry who took on the support role. With the score at 6/54 and another 15 overs remaining, Eliza played really well, with soft hands and playing late under her eyes she constantly hit the balls to gaps rotating the strike. Eliza’s determination to survive the innings was evident with her repeated dives to get in behind the crease after taking quick singles. Chloe & Eliza’s batting for the last 15 overs was almost flawless, with an unbroken partnership of 82 runs, scoring at 5.5 runs per over allowing the Manly girls to end up with a very defendable score of 6/136. Well batted Eliza and to Chloe for a wonderful and much need 63.

Lunch done it was time to prepare for the second innings. The Manly girls were ready but so to were the Newcastle openers seeing off our opening bowlers, although Laura was effective with only 1 run hit off the bat from her opening spell. It took 5 overs and a bowling change to Kate Salmon (1/10 off 3) for us to secure our first wicket. The Newcastle top order kept the runs flowing with 52 off their first 10 overs, but whilst the runs were being scored by Newcastle so too were the wickets by Manly. The energy in the field from the girls was impressive, we held all our catches including two to Ashleigh Karcher positioned at point.

With the ball, the day belonged to Ellie James ending up with 6/22 off 4 overs, 5 of her 6 wickets were cleaned bowled. In fact Ellie managed to pick up her last 5 wickets for just 2 runs. With a great display of line and length bowling, Ellie used her height as she collected wickets in each of her 4 overs putting any chance of a Newcastle victory well beyond doubt. Maya Nicey (2/11) secured two late wickets and the game as Newcastle were dismissed for 61.

Ellie’s efforts returned the best ever figures for a Manly Mollie Dive player as well as the 4th best figures ever in the history of the Mollie Dive comp. A wonderful achievement that will be hard to beat.

A really impressive start for the season for the girls, with so many positives to take away from the game including some career best performances for Chloe and Ellie.

Thanks to all our helpers & supporters, we look forward to returning to Griffith Park next Sunday as we take on the girls from Sutherland.